~ whilst laying on the roof this weekend, we could hear dipshits screaming and hollering every time a football or baseball team whose game was being televised scored a point. we have always had a knee jerk aversion to anything related to organized sports: sports team jerseys, sports television networks, sports bars, sports fans, and pretty much surrounding sports, exlcuding the sport itself. we always presumed this stemmed from growing up too fat and slow to play sports, being too unpopular to be picked for a team, and adherence to the typical jock vs nerd/punk schema.
however, finding ourselves seated to a middle-aged man and his 6-year-old son at a cafe this morning, a one-sided conversation clarified for us the source of the mindless nature of sports fans. this child was not even old enough to play football, baseball, and certainly not hockey, yet his father was asking him which sports team was his favorite and to explain his choide; the kid doesn’t even understand what the sports are about, yet he is already being taught to take sides over something ridiculous. this sort of indoctrination is as offensive to us as the act of sending children to sunday school or forcing a carnivourous diets upon them. imagine if our fathers had forced us to listen to deep purple or the eagles – or to shout with glee every time brad pitt signed a new contract; that is how absurd it is cheer when someone who isn’t you makes a touchdown.
'billy' responds:
Can’t indoctrination also be a shared culture?
27 September 2007 _ 23h21m41 EST [link]
'the angry red planet' responds:
i was indoctrinated to believe that murder is ‘wrong’ and that male genital mutilation is ‘right’. it is necessary to have these beliefs to take part in the culture into which i was born.
professional sports are mere consumer outlets; why are people indoctrinated to act like such assholes over them?
28 September 2007 _ 08h46m20 EST [link]
i view it as the emotional consequence of a prior rational decision.
28 September 2007 _ 16h03m02 EST [link]
a choice is made after some kind of deliberation (by the individual or leader of the group), but from there the defense of this ideal is emotional and competitive when confronted by opposition. that’s not to say one can’t influence the other, rather such reflections are reserved for a more pensive time. for example, while you may have entered into a physical conflict based moral principles, it is doubtful you’d be thinking of such ideals when trying to throw a fist to your opponents jaw.
how one conducts themselves in the pursuit of defending an ideal, defending a team, or even defending one bands music over another, is a result of the emotional status and competitive instinct (natural and as a result of training) of the individual and can’t be attributed solely to the idea being defended (though perhaps certain ideas appeal more to a certain type of person).
there are assholes everywhere.
public response: